


To Sir, With Love

by arbitraryink



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: AU Week 2010, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Forum: Goldenlake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:26:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitraryink/pseuds/arbitraryink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kel is a diligent student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [journeycat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeycat/gifts).



> Has nothing to do with the song or movie referenced in the title. University!AU for [journeycat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/journeycat). Written for AU Week 2010 at [Goldenlake](http://fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com).

“Excuse me, Professor Reed?”  
  
He looks up from the documents in front of him, running his fingers absently through his silvering blond hair. There is a student in his doorway, clutching a textbook to her chest and brushing her mousy brown bangs back with the heel of her hand, and he frowns at her. “Yes?” he asks, furrowing his brows.  
  
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” says the girl, politeness etched into every feature of her face, “but I have a question about your lecture this afternoon.”  
  
“This afternoon?”  
  
A flash of uncertainty crosses the girl’s face, but she tentatively continues anyway. “Yes, sir, the archaeology lecture. The bit on skeletal properties of the archaeopteryx, in particular.”  
  
“Oh, yes, of course.” The professor’s brows smooth out and he looks vaguely about his office for another moment. “And, er, what was your name?”  
  
“Kel,” she answers eagerly, stepping forward into his office. “Kel Mindelan. I, um, I’ve taken all of your archaeology and botany classes up ’til now.”  
  
“Is that so?” he murmurs, pulling out drawers and lifting up papers until he spies his spectacles on the edge of his filing cabinet. “Very good. I see. Well.” He gestures to a chair, sits in another. “What did you have in mind?”  
  
Kel sits on the very edge of the chair, still clutching the book to her chest. “Well, you see, I was, um, having some trouble understanding the flight system of the archaeopteryx. Mammals have heavy bones. How is it that this creature can fly at all?”  
  
“As it is not a mammal at all, the archaeopteryx’s bones are quite hollow. It is a bird, you see. There were birds, even, millions of years ago. In fact, I could show you.” He stands up to fetch the file he has on the creature, setting it down on the desk between them and opening the cover to review the photos inside. “Here, you can see that the bone structure is quite fine. The skin would have been smooth, a little leathery, and very thin to allow for appropriate flight.”  
  
Reed continues to speak, aware of the student’s eyes not on the photographs from the file before them, but on his face, very intense and probing. He tugs once at his tie, wondering when the room had become so warm, before closing the file and meeting Kel’s eyes. “And that is everything. We will discuss the beast’s social interaction patterns, according to our evidence, in our lecture next week.”  
  
“Thank you, sir,” says Kel, not breaking eye contact until she gets to her feet and turns for the door. “That certainly cleared many things up. I look forward to seeing you again next week.” He doesn’t know why those words, spoken in that manner, make his pulse speed up.  
  
She glances back at him over her shoulder as she leaves, offering him a little smile before ducking her head and heading into the hall. Reed sits back, taking off his spectacles and polishing them with his shirttail. He wonders just how much more he’ll be seeing of Kel Mindelan.


	2. Chapter 2

Kel goes to see her professor for clarification twice the next week and once again the week after. Each time, the man clears up her problems with a faint frown – he was  _sure_  he’d explained that one clearly during the lecture – and when he checks his student records, he discovers that despite her uncertainties, she pulls almost straight-A grades. He wonders if that is due to his help or simply due to her natural diligence.  
  
He is more inclined to believe in the latter option, as he has taken to searching her out in his lecture halls, only to find that she is hunched over her notebook, scribbling away everything he says. What Reed can’t know is that she tries to capture the tone of his voice as she writes down his words, and that in the margins, covered by her hands or wrists or arms or whatever else is convenient, are little hearts.  
  
The fifth time Kel goes to see him, she taps once on the door before pushing it open slowly. She doesn’t feel like she is intruding – these are his morning office hours, for one, and for another, the door isn’t shut firmly – until she sees him behind his desk, long fingers wound tightly into his hair and spectacles perched on the end of his nose as he sits with his eyes closed. Her professor looks exhausted, and as Kel takes in his rumpled tie, clothes that look as if they’ve been slept in, and the end of a blanket peeking out from the lowest drawer of his filing cabinet, she feels a wave of sympathy.  
  
“Sir?” she asks gently, and when he doesn’t move, she ventures closer. “Sir?” Another step, and she is propping her hands on his desk, leaning forward so that her breath tickles his hair. “ _Sir_?”  
  
With a start, Reed drops his hands, opening his dark eyes and fixing them on Kel’s hazel ones. Their faces are only inches apart, he realises, and he is caught so off guard that all he does is stare at her. She is staring back, and there is a little smile on her face as she says, “Professor, you look a little tense.”  
  
---


	3. Chapter 3

“My wife politely informed me via phone call last night that I was not to return home until I had time to reflect and decide what was more important to me.”  
  
They are sitting in the coffee lounge at the end of the Science department, and Professor Reed is sitting on one end of a couch, draining a cup of coffee. Kel sips her own cup of tea with her back to the counter, but sets it down when she sees the fatigue painted all over his face, coming up behind him and massaging his tense neck and shoulders with firm fingers. He sighs in contentment, and she swears she can feel his heart beating beneath her fingers.  
  
“Was it something serious?” she wants to know, kneading his muscles with both hands.  
  
“Just a difference of opinion.”  
  
“Well sir,” she says, and she feels her face flushing, “I’m sure she’ll realise she’s made a mistake soon enough.”  
  
“You are very kind, Kel Mindelan,” Reed says to her, looking over his shoulder and meeting her eyes. She moves back around to sit beside him, and before she knows what else is happening, they are exchanging kisses – with more than a bit of tongue – and she feels totally triumphant at last.  
  
In the last couple of years, Kel’s friends have given a try at romance with her, or she has with them. Neal was a failure, but mostly because she had a crush on him while he was waxing poetic to every other girl in school. Cleon, in her freshman year at the uni, was all right, but he had a girlfriend back home and over the summer holidays they’d rekindled something special. Kel didn’t take it personally. Last year, she’d even tried kissing with Owen, but it was awkward because he is like a little brother to her, and even now she has trouble looking at him with a straight face.  
  
It was after Owen, though, that she realised just how much she likes to kiss older men. She kissed her Scout leader Wyl once, but he asked her not to continue and since she likes his wife, she hasn’t pushed it. And she has kissed her sports coach Raoul a couple of times, and he has big hands and big feet and she knows what they say about men with  _those_  features, but she sometimes sees him as a bit of a father figure and thinks he probably feels the same way, so they mostly only do that when they’re bored after practise.   
  
Though she has been kissed before, Kel has never experienced one like this. Her professor, to her surprise, is a little bit playful, a little bit pressing. She thinks she likes how he is confident without being invasive, and how he plays a little bit with her hair while holding her still with the other hand.   
  
“What disagreement did you have?” Kel asks quietly, bumping her nose against his. “What could you have differed on to such an extent that your wife asked you to leave?”  
  
With a sigh, Reed closes his eyes, looking weary to the bone. Kel feels a rush of sympathy and adoration. When he speaks, she is prepared to defend him.  
  
“ _She_  thinks that four affairs with students in one semester is too many.”


End file.
